08 Sep WHEN THE SHOFAR IS SILENT, REMEMBER TO BREATHE

There are moments in
life when we suddenly
become aware of our
breathing. A frightening
diagnosis, a phone call
in the middle of the
night, turbulence on an
airplane, waiting for
news about someone we love, a siren in Israel,
or an antisemitic incident that once would
have seemed unimaginable, can make our
chest tighten, our heart accelerate, and our
breathing become shallow. At those moments,
we either instinctively know what to do, or
someone reminds us that the way to stay calm
is to slow down and take a deep breath.
As we enter Rosh Hashanah 5787, I suspect
many of us could use a deep breath. The last
few years have been relentless. October 7 and
its aftermath, a prolonged war, the extended
confrontation with Iran, rising antisemitism
around the world, and an increasingly
unsettling sense that assumptions we once
took for granted can no longer be assumed,
have all left us exhausted.
All of that is before we even consider what is
happening in our individual worlds. Some are
waiting to find a spouse, yearning to have a
child, navigating illness, caring for aging
parents, struggling with children, worrying
about finances, or carrying a private pain
nobody else can see. We are functioning,
moving, and doing what needs to be done, but
sometimes it feels hard to breathe.
Perhaps that is why one of the most important
messages of Rosh Hashanah is something
extraordinarily simple: remember to breathe.
Not because of a new meditation technique or
the latest self-help book, but because of the
Torah’s description of the creation of the first
human being, the event we commemorate on
Rosh Hashanah:
ַו ִַּיּיֶצֶר ה׳ ֱ-אֱֹלֹקים ֶאֶת־ ָָהָאָָדָם- ָעָָפָר ִמִן-־ָהֲָאֲָדָָמָה
ַ.-ו ִַּיַּּפּח ְּ-בַּאַָּפּיו ִנְִׁשַׁמַת- ַחִַּיּים ַו ְַיְִהִי – ָָהָאָָדָם ְלְֶנֶֶפֶׁש ַחַָּיּה
“Hashem formed man from the dust of the
earth, and He breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and man became a living being.”
The body had already been formed, the organs
were there, and the physical infrastructure was
complete, but Adam wasn’t yet alive. Life
began with a breath. The Nefesh HaChaim
focuses on the Torah’s unusual description,
vayipach b’apav, G-d “blew” into Adam.
When someone blows, explains Rav Chaim
Volozhiner, the air comes from deep within the
person. The Torah is teaching us something
profound about ourselves. The neshama within
us originates, as it were, from the deepest
place, from Hashem Himself. Our neshima,
our breath, points us toward our neshama, our
soul.
That connection is embedded in the final
words of Tehillim: “Kol ha’neshama tehalleil
Kah, Let every soul praise Hashem.” Chazal
hear another meaning in those words: Al kol
neshima u’neshima she’adam nosheim, tzarich
l’hallel laKadosh Baruch Hu, for every breath
a person takes, he should praise Hashem.

Every breath is a gift, but perhaps there is
something more. Breath isn’t merely
something for which we praise Hashem.
Breath itself can become an expression of
faith.
When we panic, our breathing becomes
shallow and rapid. When we feel threatened,
overwhelmed, or out of control, our body often
knows it before our mind has even processed
it. Our heart races, our muscles tighten, and
our breathing changes. That is why controlled
breathing is used by people operating under
extraordinary pressure. Navy SEALs famously
use a technique known as “box breathing”:
inhale slowly through the nose for four
seconds, hold for four, exhale slowly for four,
and then hold again for four before repeating
the cycle. The point isn’t that the danger has
disappeared or the circumstances have
suddenly changed. What has changed is the
ability to remain composed and respond rather
than simply react.
That is an extraordinarily Jewish idea. Emunah
doesn’t mean nothing frightening will happen,
that everything will unfold according to our
plan, or that we deny danger, pain, and
uncertainty. Emunah means remembering,
even from inside the narrowest place, that we
are not alone. Sometimes taking a deliberate
breath can be more than a physiological
exercise; it can be an act of emunah, a moment
of reconnecting our neshima with our neshama
and remembering the Source of both.
Usually, on Rosh Hashanah, there is a physical
expression of that journey in the shofar. A
shofar is a remarkably simple instrument.
There are no strings, reeds, or keys, and it
doesn’t generate its own sound. It takes our
breath and amplifies it. The Sfas Emes explains
that when we blow the shofar from the breath
deep inside ourselves, we are returning to that
original breath of creation. We are declaring
that beneath all the distractions, mistakes,
anxieties, and distance of the past year, the
breath Hashem breathed into us remains. The
neshama and our relationship with its Source
remain intact. We take the very life He placed
within us and return it to Him as a sound, and
in doing so we acknowledge and coronate Him
as the Source of that life.
This year, however, there is a fascinating twist.
The first day of Rosh Hashanah is Shabbos and
there will be no shofar. We will recite
Malchiyos, Zichronos, and Shofaros. We will
speak about the shofar, study its pesukim,
remember its sounds and reflect on its meaning,
and yet the room will remain silent. Perhaps
that silence contains a message of its own. The
shofar may be silent, but we are still breathing.
The instrument isn’t producing a sound, but
the breath that would have traveled through it
remains inside us.
Perhaps on the first day of Rosh Hashanah,
Hashem asks us to encounter the message of
the shofar even before we hear its sound. Can
we find the breath without the shofar? Can we
recognize the neshama without needing to be
awakened by the blast? Can we remember

Who breathed life into us
even in the silence? On
the second day, when we
will, please G-d, hear the
shofar, we will take that
breath and send it through
the narrow opening until it
emerges from the broad
end.
The shape of the shofar
itself captures the journey.
The Rebbe Maharash
explained that it begins
narrow and becomes
wide, reflecting the words
min hameitzar karasi Kah,
anani bamerchav Kah. We
call out from constriction and seek
expansiveness. We move from feeling trapped
to discovering space, from breathlessness to
breath.
Even the sounds of the shofar tell that story.
We begin with a tekiah, a long, whole,
confident sound. Then comes shevarim,
reflecting the times life breaks us and leaves us
groaning, our breath interrupted. Sometimes it
becomes a teruah, short, staccato bursts that
sound almost like the breath of anxiety and
urgency. But we never end with shevarim or
teruah. After the broken sounds comes another
tekiah. Brokenness doesn’t get the last word,
nor does panic. We return to wholeness and
eventually reach the tekiah gedolah, the great,
sustained breath.
Halacha itself associates breath with life. The
Gemara in Yoma discusses searching through
the rubble of a collapsed building on Shabbos
to determine whether someone is still alive.
How far must we search? Until we can
determine whether there is breath at the
nostrils, based on the verse, “All in whose
nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life.” To
breathe is to be alive, but Rosh Hashanah
challenges us not merely to be biologically
alive. It asks whether we are spiritually alive.
Are we living deliberately or reacting
constantly? Are we connected to the Source of
our breath, or have we become so distracted by
the noise around us that we have forgotten
where our life comes from?
Our world doesn’t make that easy. We live
hunched over screens, bombarded by
notifications, breaking news, WhatsApp
messages, emails, and endless reasons to be
outraged or afraid. We rarely sit still,
experience silence, or take a full breath before
reaching for the next thing demanding our
attention. Maybe that is part of the gift of this
unusual Rosh Hashanah. The first day is silent,
with no shofar to awaken us, only the quiet of
Shabbos and the opportunity to become
conscious of the breath that Hashem continues
to place within us every moment.
Before asking what we will accomplish this
year, perhaps we should ask a more
fundamental question: What is giving us life?
What animates us, fills our lungs and our souls,
and what are we living for? On Rosh Hashanah

we celebrate the birthday of humanity by
returning to humanity’s first moment. Hashem
breathed into Adam and Adam came alive.
This year, before the shofar ever sounds, we
can take a slow, deep breath and remember
that we are alive, that our lives are gifts, and
that there is a neshama inside each of us that no
failure, distraction, disappointment, or difficult
year can extinguish. We don’t control
everything that will happen this year, but we
know Who gave us this breath and Who will be
with us through whatever comes.
The world may still feel narrow. There are real
things to worry about, real challenges to
confront, real enemies to defeat, and real
problems we cannot wish away. Emunah isn’t
pretending that the meitzar isn’t narrow. It is
believing that there can be a merchav on the
other side and that Hashem is with us as we
travel from one to the other.
So sometime on the first day of Rosh Hashanah,
when there is no shofar to hear, create a
moment to hear its message anyway. Put down
the machzor for a few seconds, close your eyes
if it helps, and take a slow breath. Inhale for
four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four,
and hold again for four. With the first breath,
think: Hashem gave me life. With the second:
Hashem is with me. With the third: I don’t
have to control everything. With the fourth: I
can face whatever this year brings.
Then, on the second day, when the shofar
finally sounds, listen differently. Hear your
own breath in its cry, the breath Hashem first
breathed into Adam and continues to give each
of us. Hear it travel from the narrow opening to
the wide one, from meitzar to merchav, and
allow it to carry our prayer that whatever 5787
brings, we have the faith, strength, and
presence to face it.
We came into this world with Hashem’s breath,
and each Rosh Hashanah brings an opportunity
to be renewed by becoming conscious of it
again. These days, in many ways, we are all
SEALs, exposed to extraordinary pressures
and challenges and trying not to become
overwhelmed by them. We cannot control all
that is happening around us, but we can pause,
breathe deeply, reconnect our neshima to our
neshama, and remember Who is ultimately in
control.
Let this be the year we return to our breath, and

through it, return to ourselves and to Hashem.